Am in desperate pain, but hanging on with the help of advil and Amoxcillin. The fourth root (just like the fourth man of the Cambridge Five of a three-root-canal procedure has made his displeasure known, and how. Over the weekend, I was in agony because the dumb thing flared up but Dr. Dentist only works Tuesdays to Fridays, and every other Saturday so he wasn't available - even more irritatingly, he doesn't pick up calls on his emergency number. Hrumph. However, I kept dialing early in the morning until he did. So on Monday, he diagnosed and prescribed massive doses of amoxicillin. Thank the good Lord for Alexander Flemming and his powers of observation which noticed that the milk, left out for the kitty, went sour except for one spot where there was some mould growing. And from that, penicillin, and relief for me.

However, I shall rise above it all and move on to one of the great pleasures of the impending  summer. To wit, riding out on your bicycle to the beach or park on a warmish evening after the week's work. There you find a core group of friends and their friends gathered on several blankets, with a wide variety of food, chairs, candles and a warm welcome, at least initially...

You see, sometime last week,  SP sent out an e-mail, which went something along these lines:

"Plan your activities for Thursday or Saturday night because JR is only available on Friday night, and I'm not playing unless he moderates. And we are playing. Hence Friday night is sacrosanct. So what say you? To lynch or not to lynch?"

How to resist such summons? And so the die was cast, the moon was dusted off and brought out, and the werewolves made to howl. And there I was on Friday evening, riding out on my bicycle to the beach. And there S, J, T, M, T, St, PA (remember this set of initials well), and a host of others were with salads of all sorts, baked meats, fruit pies, fresh tropical fruit, candles and drink. There was also a bag of Cheetos which were quite popular. We supped, we sipped and exchanged witticisms. The feeding frenzy neared a crescendo at which point, S and M brought a red tin with the words "Cookies by George" emblazoned over the cover. Silence fell, and noses quivered expectantly, but were crushed when S said, "Don't get excited, we use the tin for candles!".

We hid our disappointment quite well, but I distinctly heard someone say, "Fecking Tease!".

Once all were sated, we settled down, nestled our bums in to the sand and looked expectantly at JR. He glanced around us, sighed, took our his reading glasses and waved his hands at us to say, clear a path around the lot of you.Then the cards were shuffled, and we were assigned our roles as werewolves, townspeople, cupid, lovers, hunters, or fortune tellers, and the Game started.

In essence, two of us are werewolves who choose their victim at night when everyone is alseep, then when dawn comes, the townspeople put their collective noggins together and choose someone to lynch, hoping that they've chosen the werewolf. Key to this game is not knowing who has what role, and how persuasive you are in targetting someone for lynching.

JR is the moderator, and he guides us. Except he had a few problems with a few who didn't quite understand the concept of the game.

In one instance, Cupid picked two townsfolk to be lovers who will die together if one is lynched or killed by the werewolf. The way it works is this. Night falls, JR tells us to sleep (i.e. close our eyes), then he calls upon Cupid to wake and choose two lovers. Once chosen, Cupid falls asleep again, and JR taps the two chosen lovers so they wake and gaze lovingly upon each other, and know that if one dies or is lynched, the other is to follow suit.

Well. So Cupid was called awake, Cupid chose the two lovers, JR tapped the two lovers, then asked the TWO lovers to wake.

There was a pregnant silence, then JR's voice rang out indignantly,

"Why are there three pairs of eyes open?! There should only be two pairs! And why are you blowing kisses?! Stop blowing kisses! Cupid didn't choose you as a lover!"

"But you touched me!", protested the blower of kisses.

"I may have brushed by you! BUT I DIDN'T TOUCH YOU!"

And so we had to start over, with everyone giving the blower of kisses, but especially his husband, the evil eye.

The cards were reshuffled and the process was repeated, with JR saying, "You're only a lover if I touch you! Not if I BRUSH by you, not if the wind ruffles your hair! Only if I touch you!"

This time, the right number of lovers were chosen, then they were told to sleep, and JR asked the fortune teller to open his eyes. Another moment of silence, then an explosion "Why are you awake?! You're cupid, you're supposed to be asleep, I said, only the fortune teller!"

And we had to start over again, with JR muttering about us being a village of idiots, and that PA (the insomniac cupid) was the village idiot. The cards were passed around, the characters established, the werewolves struck and the village meeting called to decide who the werewolf was, whereupon PA was promptly lynched.

"Well done! You got the village idiot, but you're all still a village of idiots", the supposedly neutral moderator was heard to say, while PA burst into tears, and stormed off saying, "It's not fair!  One lousy mistake and you're lynched. I'll need a cigarette to calm myself down now!"

Then I was lynched even though I was the fortune teller, and poor T was also lynched as he'd been chosen to be my lover. We did die a dramatic death though, which would have put Romeo and Juliet's to shame and thus did the game end.

All in all, a wonderful evening where you're positively encouraged to gang up on one another. So good for working through school playground traumas.